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The President Speaks Out (Finally) on Marriage

By Andrew Rosenthal May 9, 2012 4:17 pmMay 9, 2012 4:17 pm

ABC NewsPresident Obama during an interview today on ABC News in which he announced that he now supports same-sex marriage.

It was a long time coming: President Obama spoke out today in favor of marriage equality. “I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married,” he said in an interview with ABC News.

For me, personally, I could have done without the preamble. But it was nevertheless a strong statement. No more temporizing. No more avoidance. No more “evolution.”
He presented his personal conviction as the result of a personal journey, which is probably the case for many Americans—the consequence of conversations with “friends and family and neighbors,” and exposure to members of his own staff “who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together.” He also stressed that this is a generational issue—that opposition to same-sex unions doesn’t even “make sense” to his daughters. (It doesn’t make sense to my kids, either.)

It’s a major breakthrough for the president to have come out in support of same-sex marriage; and so in favor of dismantling an institutional barrier to true equal rights for all Americans. (The last Democratic president, Bill Clinton, talked a good game but signed the outrageous Defense of Marriage Act.)

Mr. Obama’s timing, though, left something to be desired. His remarks followed the overwhelming approval by North Carolina voters of a constitutional amendment that not only bans same-sex marriage, but also prohibits same-sex civil unions.

R. Clarke Cooper, executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans, was livid. “This calculated announcement comes too late to be of any use to the people of North Carolina, or any of the other states that have addressed this issue on his watch,” Mr. Cooper said. “This administration has manipulated LGBT families for political gain as much as anybody, and after his campaign’s ridiculous contortions to deny support for marriage equality this week he does not deserve praise for an announcement that comes a day late and a dollar short.”

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, on the other hand, called it “a major turning point in the history of American civil rights.” He added, “No American president has ever supported a major expansion of civil rights that has not ultimately been adopted by the American people – and I have no doubt that this will be no exception.”

I hope he’s right, but obviously the fight isn’t near over: The North Carolina vote proves that. Ultimately, this is an issue that will have to be decided at the national level, by Congress or the Supreme Court. Not this Congress. And not this Supreme Court. But equal rights cannot be left to the whim of the individual states.